For government, XAware marks the spot.

• Author: Carpenter, Courtney
• Position: High Tech Coloradobiz

AS RECENTLY AS THREE YEARS AGO, XAWARE INC. WAS A FLEDGLING outfit with just five employees, but lately the company's product has spoken louder than its scant history. The Colorado Springs startup made headlines in February when it won a five-year contract potentially worth nearly $10 million to provide software to the federal government.

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XAware was one of five firms selected by Lockheed Martin Corp.'s information-technology business unit to service a $98 million information-technology contract for the government. The company's role is to configure off-the-shelf software and put together a system that manages the different software systems of various government agencies.

With the boom of the Internet in 1996, finding a common language among different computer software programs and data systems became a problem for companies and the government alike. Software developers Kirstan Vandersluis and Rohit Mital realized information exchange was an industry problem when they searched but could find no off-the-shelf solutions. In 1999, they co-founded XAware Inc. and started to extract data in hopes of solving the technological dilemma many people were facing.

Since its launch, XAware has slowly made its mark with a software program that translates data stored on one system into a common information language, XML.

"The software connects the language of one computer system to another," explained Bill Miller, chairman. For example, companies have all kinds of information about their customers, including demographics, what products they buy, their income, and much more. By using XML technology, data can be transferred from one computer to another more quickly and more easily than ever.

"We help tie it all together," said Miller.

XAware signed its first customer in...